In the middle of last month a committee of the European Parliament produced a report on extraordinary renditions. This is the ugly name for the American practice of abducting terrorist suspects, and flying them secretly from one country to another, for interrogation that is likely to include torture.
The committee reported at least 1,245 flights were operated by the CIA through European airspace between Sept. 11, 2001 and the end of 2005. These flights had been authorized by Austria, Belgium, Britain, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden.
Their report made clear they had been given less than wholehearted cooperation by the European Union’s member governments. Some governments want to deny the facts, others to admit the minimum possible. Some MEPs criticized this committee for the lack of fresh and clear evidence and others criticized their report for being anti-American in tone.
For some years I have been reading in serious newspapers and periodicals of the unsavory American abductions of terrorist suspects and their subsequent treatment. The outline of the practice can be seen even if the details are being kept locked away. Here is a superpower behaving badly and European governments conniving with it. All are damaging their moral values, which helps international terrorism in the long run.
The European Parliament was told Britain allowed 170 secret CIA flights connected to the illegal seizure of terror suspects. Only Germany allowed more. The House of Commons has an All-Party Committee set up to examine the role of the United Kingdom in this regard. In 2005 Prime Minister Tony Blair was asked about this issue in the House of Commons. His answer horrified me:
“These types of stories arise with a fair degree of regularity. I think we should wait for the facts first.” I have not the slightest doubt he knew personally only too well what was going on and had, presumably, authorized it or had allowed a senior Cabinet minister to do so (perhaps the foreign secretary?) With the possible exception of Mossad, MI6 has the closest relationship with the CIA of any intelligence agency abroad.
On Feb. 16 Judge Caterina Interlandi from Milan, ordered 26 Americans, most of them believed to be CIA agents, to stand trial on June 8 for the kidnapping and torture of a Muslim cleric, Abu Omar. It is the first such criminal court case in Europe, and five Italians were also indicted, including the former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicoló Pollari.
Abu Omar was allegedly kidnapped on a Milan street in February 2003 while on his way to a mosque. He was bundled into a white van and beaten and blindfolded. He was flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and on to Egypt, where he claimed he was tortured. In February he was released in Cairo.
He told his defense lawyers that during questioning his hands were “tied up to my back, totally naked, and my body hanging from the ceiling by my feet while my head was suspended upside down.”
He went on: “I was subjected to electric shocks all over my body specially in my head, nipples, testicles and penis.”
The European Commission hopes this trial will encourage prosecutors in other European Union countries to pursue similar cases.
Already a prosecutor in Munich has issued some arrest warrants against 13 people for an alleged kidnapping of a German citizen.
It is a safe bet that the trial in Milan, in due course, will spur on other EU countries to lift the veil on their cooperation with the American program. At this stage the Spanish government has decided to declassify an intelligence report on the CIA’s use of Spanish airports after a request from a judge.
The commission has asked Washington regularly for “clarification” over the use of American military bases throughout Europe for this purpose. It has been horrified at the suggestion of secret prisons — “black sites” — in Europe which would be grave violations of European human rights. It has been annoyed that Europe seems to have been used by the CIA as the principal area in the world for such goings on. It seems that European goodwill and cooperation for measures against international terrorism have been abused by the Bush administration. The Americans for years now have failed to be honest and straightforward on this subject. Of course this is fuelling distrust of, and dislike for, Americans.
Last September President George Bush did admit that 14 suspects had been detained in secret centers abroad but was not prepared to say where. There has been speculation that such centers might be in Eastern Europe. Washington denies using torture.
I suspect it will take a new American president to remove this maggot at the core of the Western world.
